Editor Brian Lagerhausen Takes Top Prize At AICE Gala

Winners and the Best in Show for the 2014 AICE Awards were announced and honored at a gala event in New York on Thursday, May 15th, where Editor Brian Lagerhausen of Beast in San Francisco took home the inaugural Best in Show trophy for his work on Google.

The winning entry, a spot titled “Fearless,” was created by the ad agency Autofuss and directed by Drake Doremus of B-Reel. “Fearless” introduces us to glassophobia–anxiety over or fear of public speaking–and the somewhat nerdish lad who has it yet still has to make a speech in front of his class. Deploying his Google Nexus 7 tablet, the boy accesses great historic speeches, Colin Firth’s performance in The King’s Speech, and assorted other resources that help him feel more comfortable talking before an audience.

The other top AICE Award winners were four post companies that tied for the most honors with three apiece: Cut+Run, which won for work from its London and L.A. offices; Cutters Studios, which earned recognition for work from its Cutters editorial company and Flavor, its visual effects and design studio; Rock Paper Scissors; and Umlaut.

Awards were presented in a total of 30 categories at the gala – 21 technique, media and product categories and nine awards presented to the best work from each of the association’s regional chapters.

This year marked the introduction of the Best in Show award, which was presented to one winning entry selected by the AICE Curatorial Committee from among the 21 main competition category winners. The Committee is a group of 13 artists at AICE member companies who represent a cross-section of disciplines, crafts and regions.

This was also the introductory year for two new categories: Alternative Media (over :90) and Online Campaign. The latter was designed to recognize work created specifically for online distribution.

Also taking place at the gala tonight was AICE Hall of Fame induction of John Palestrini, the late co-founder of the Lively Group of postproduction companies and a highly respected and admired editor, businessman, industry leader and mentor. Palestrini’s accomplishments were marked in a moving video presentation and by remarks delivered by his former partner, Ethel Rubinstein, CEO of Lively Group, and his son, Kris Palestrini, owner of Krispy Pictures.

Multiple winners
Cut+Run won in the categories of Alternative Media (:90 and under) for Nike “Fuelband” from AKQA, edited by Sam Ostrove of Cut+Run London; in National Campaign for Moto X/Motorola’s “Music,” “Drive” and “Meeting” from Droga 5, edited by Graham Turner and Frank Effron of Cut+Run LA; and in Public Service for Macmillan’s “Give Support” from VCCP, edited by Ben Campbell of Cut+Run London.

Cutters Studios won in the categories of Comedy for Oscar Mayer’s “Giving Thanks” for mcgarrybowen in Chicago, edited by Grant Gustafson; and in Best Of Chicago for IBM’s “On Brand” for VSA Partners, edited by Michael Lippert. Flavor, Cutters Studios’ design arm, won in the Design category for the AICP “Show Opener,” created for the AICP Show.

Rock Paper Scissors won in the categories of Broadcast Promotion for Netflix’s “House of Cards Season 2 Teaser,” edited by Grant Surmi; and in Montage and Best of Los Angeles for Nike’s “Possibilities,” edited by Angus Wall.

Umlaut won in the categories of Alternative Media (over :90) for Skype’s “Born Friends” for Pereira & O’Dell, edited by Jessica Congdon; in Fashion/Beauty for Levi’s “Modern Frontier Train” for AKQA, edited by Doug Cox; and in Online Campaign for Skype’s “Born Friends,” “Denis” and “Growing up Family” for Pereira & O’Dell, also edited by Jessica Congdon.

The Best in Show winner from Beast SF also won AICE Awards in the Storytelling and Best of San Francisco categories. The only other multiple winner in the competition was The Mill, which won in the Color Grading category for Guinness’ “Guinness Sapeurs” for AMV BBDO in London, which was graded by colorist Adam Scott of The Mill’s L.A. office, and in the Visual Effects category for PETA’s “PETA: 98% Human” for BBDO, with effects from Angus Kneale and Vince Baertsoen of The Mill’s New York office.

Best in Show Analysis
Editor Craig Lewandowski, a member of the Curatorial Committee, notes that several category winners could have merited recognition as the show’s top winner. He was asked what propelled the Google spot “Fearless” to its Best in Show award.

“When you’re judging work it can be hard to separate concept from editorial,” Lewandowski said. “But as an editor, when we looked at it I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know if I would have done it any differently.’ It communicated a lot of information in a short amount of time, the sound was impeccably woven into the piece and it highlighted the benefits of the brand in a way that made it part of the story.”

Lewandowski was impressed with how the Curatorial Committee approached its mandate of selecting the Best in Show and providing an overall vision for the winning entries to ensure they properly reflected the crafts and disciplines of their respective categories. “We had a really high level of engagement, and everyone on the committee was totally into it,” he said. “And having the perspectives from the different disciplines like effects, audio mixing and color grading was really great.”

Burke Moody

Tom Duff, president of Optimus, introduced Moody last night and paid tribute to him, citing his extensive experience prior to joining AICE. He noted that Moody and his wife and business partner Annie were founding partners of Seventh Art, a Philadelphia-based editorial and creative development company. For nearly 30 years, Burke Moody was Seventh Art’s sr. creative editor and post supervisor, editing more than 3,000 TV commercials and shorts during his career. Additionally, Moody conceived and wrote Speakeasy, a computer program, which automated the film-to-tape conform process.

As for his contributions to AICE, Moody was credited by Duff as being instrumental in the organization’s rise to “a highly respected association” throughout the industry. Moody built the first AICE website, developed symposia on “24P” and “Editing in the Dot Com World,” wrote technical papers for the association, developed industry surveys, managed a major revision of the AICE bid form, and developed key relationships with sister associations such as the ANA, AAAA’s, AICP, and the ACA up in Canada.

Duff added that Moody “wouldn’t have been able to accomplish any of this had it not been for his Annie. Her critical and strategic thinking along with her skills as a producer have been vital to all of Burke’s achievements. They are a true team

“More than anything,” continued Duff, “at the core of all of this is Burke’s commitment to what the association was founded for: elevating the respect of the editor. True to his ideals, he wanted nothing to do with this [tribute to him this evening] at all–’the show is about the editor, the show is about the editor.’ That’s our Burke, all right, just a class act of a wonderful man we have been blessed to have led us all these years.”

Camp Kuleshov

In addition, the top winners from the 2013 Camp Kuleshov events were acknowledged. The Camp Kuleshov events are the regional chapters’ trailer editing competitions for assistants.

The AICE Awards will head west next year, when the association’s Los Angeles chapter will host the event.